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DARWIN. 



Tlie whole of nature may be supposed to consist of two essences; one 
which may be termed spirit, and the other matter: the former of these 
possesses the power to commence or produce motion; the latter to receive 
it.— Zoono?nia, vol. /. § 1. I am ready to allow, * * * that the ultimate 
cause of all motion is immaterial, that is, God.— lb., vol. I. § 14. 

Erasmus .Dartvin, 1794. 



vV. 



By ROBERT McK^. ORMSBY. 



NEW YORK: 

PRINTED BY P. F. McBREEN, 14 & 16 ANN STREET. 






7r- 






Ervtered according to Act of Congress irl the year 1876^ 

By THOMAS MURPHY, 

in the Office of tlie Librarian of Congress, at Wasliingtorv, 



PREFACE. 



Mr. Huxley recently gave three lectures in New York City, on 
the horse, showing that at a prior geologic period, he had four toes, 
and arguing that he was developed from a five toed, or clawed, mam- 
mal. In his lectures he assumed that the world had a beginning. 
In speaking of "the hypothesis of the eternity of this state of things 
in which we now are," he remarked that, "whether true or false, it 
is not capable of verification by evidences;" and there dropi^ed it. 
This was a masterly coup de logique! The permanence of the laws 
and order of nature is a settled presumption, and it is for him 
who assumes the contrary to produce his proof. The burden of 
evidence being on the learned professor, he will do well to advance 
his facts; and assumed facts will not answer. He has only one 
authority; that is the Bible. Was it on this account that he so 
tenderly spared Moses, in his lectures, at the expense of the poet 
Milton! I hope not, for in questions of science we must not believe 
Moses nor the prophets. Our distinguished friend seemed to feel 
quiet satisfied that he had argued the horse oif of his hoofs; but he 
was a little shy about attacking the eternity of the solar system. 

The learned professor's New York lectures have provoked the 
evolution of this poem, and I have only to beseech him not to treat 
it as he did the horse, by too closely scanning its feet; because, if 
he does, I feel certain he will make the feathers fly, and claim they 
indicate a fowl origin. 

Chester Hill, Mt. Vernon, 
New" Torlc. 



DARWIN. 



CIIRISTTAW. 

Life ! it is the gift of God, Creator 
Of the world; tlie great arcliitect wlio planned 
And made the universe. Design is seen 
In every form of life, that pkiinl}^ shows 
The workman. There was, of organic forms 
The first, which, without creative power 
Could not have sprung from inorganic dust. 
Evolution ! 'tis this that Huxley gives 
In place of a creator, with ages 
As innumerable as sea-shore sands. 
Original germs there were, some two or three, 
From wdiicli the varied forms of living things 
Have developed out, in progressive steps. 
By natural laws. Thus are we made to see 
That matter, in its corpuscules, contains 
Almost creative powers. But still, these germs 



6 

Of the lowest forms of organic life, 
With marvellous tendenc}^ to produce 
Superior species, and endowed with power 
Of propagation, infinite, — whence came they? 
Philosopher ! can you tell 1 

PHILOSOPHER. 

Life and God, in existence coeval 
Are, and both eternaL 

CHRISTIAX. 

Did life here exist 
When the earth was but a iiery vapor? 
Or an incandescent mass of matter ? 

PHILOSOPHER. 

That earth was ever in a gaseous state, 

Is mere conjecture; and philosophy 

With conjectures deals not. We think we know 

That matter is eternal. This premised, 

We see not why the universe of worlds. 

As they now in systems revolve in space, 

Should not be eternal, too. And if so, 

Why if the solar sj^stem make exception? 

That these spheres from old to new bodies change 

We have no knowledge; nor have we knowledge 

Of any law for such a transformation. 



7 



CHRISTIAN. 

Surely tins earth was incandescent once, 
And destitute of life; or the science 
Of geology falsely teaches. 

PlIILOSOPIIEIl. 

The science of geology is young; 

The earth is old. And those azoic j'ocks 

Which liave been thought merely foundation stones 

Of life's temple here on earth, were, no doubt, 

Themselves the abodes of life, wlien in their prime. 

And the direful reign of carbon, also, 

Is as im^perial now, as in the days 

Of those old hard-shells, orthoceraicalled. 

CHRISTIATs^. 

Why are tilted the strata of the earth, 
If there's been no contraction of its size ? 
And how contracted, unless its temperature 
Has been reduced 'i 

PIIILOSOPHEK. 

The present must explain the mystic past. 

Strata now, in every sea and ocean. 

Are being formed; and there's but little doubt 

But time will see them into mountains, 

Hills and valleys, by some convulsion, thrown. 



8 



CHRISTIAN. 



I doubt not, causes for sucli iiplieavals 
May have existence. Bnt when we behold 
The earth's tilted strata, from east to west, 
And from north to sonth, with a general strike^ 
We mnst seek, for results so uniform, 
Some single cause. The future, it is true. 
May upheavals bring; but will the strata. 
Forced up by local causes, in their trend 
Be as uniform as those that now are here % 

PHILOSOPHER. 

Contraction and expansion, are causes 
For upheavals: but 'tis the solar heat, 
AVith gaseous forces in the- rocky depths, 
And not abatement of internal fires, 
That cracks up earth's stony vest, or shell, 
Causing fractures, at right angles running 
With the equator. I know% it is claimed 
That earth was once a fiery gas, or mist, 
Changed to its present state by loss of heat. 
This was an old school suggestion, and made 
Before the chemist came. The modern sees 
That the solar system, if all in gas. 
Spread out in space, would not, in temperature, 





Hange very high. 'No law is known to man 
By which this eartli could in space exist 
In gaseous state, though great astronomers 
And geologists of note, have thought so. 

ClIUISTIAN. 

At tlie equator, wliere the solar heat 

Descends in force, the sun's power might be great; 

But upheavals, in every latitude, 

From pole to pole, are seen. 

PHILOSOPHER. 

Yery true: but the equatorial line 

Is forever changing; and that, by steps 

So slow, as to escape the observation 

Of the astronomer. The polar ice 

Alone is stationary; under it 

The earth is moving with regular pace. 

In perhaps a spiral course, which, in time, 

All its parts must bring to the icy zone. 

There, at the poles, are the mills of the gods 

Which grind so slow and fine. Our continents 

In those mills are made, together with our soil. 

Broken rock, dirt, dust, and rounded pebbles 

Are brought forth, with the emerging continent, 

And lugged away by ice-bergs, to be strewn 



10 

Where ocean currents spread them o'er the earth. 
On our hills, in our vales, we see the marks 
Of polar ice; the ledges rounded, smoothed 
And polished by the comminuting mass. 
The striae left upon these rocky points. 
Point to the polar realms. 

CHRISTIAN. 

The polar zone 
Is then receding from the Avestern world ? 
But if the Atlantic basin has moved 
From beneath the frigid zone, why are found 
Those fields of coal in the far distant north ? 
Those carboniferous beds, as we are told, 
Numerous plants contain of tropic growth. 
Then why towards the equator should they move ? 
And why those fossil forests in the north. 
In the realms of perpetual frost and ice, 
Unless the earth, if it does move at all, 
Is creeping the other way 1 

Philosophek. 

First tell me 
How came those tropic plants, thus fossilized, 
In the frigid north 'i Around Baffin's Bay 
The gigantic fern, of an age remote, 



11 

Carbonized in its native soil, is seen, 

And speaks like liistoiy of a former age. 

Tropic plants must within the tropics grow-. 

Some have said that, warmed by internal fires, 

The earth was once a sort of hot-house globe, 

At whose poles no chill atmospheric cold 

Could check the growth of vegetation. 

Then was the air warm, indeed, for, aloft, 

In polar regions, did aspiring plants 

Spread to the breeze their leafy branches. 

A summer sky was there, to furnish clouds 

For genial showers. To impart a warmth. 

To such extent, to the polar breezes. 

How hot should be the earth beneath ? Not les^, 

At least, than broiling point for iish or steaks. 

Evaporation must ensue, and drouth. 

As at the equator, roots could not dive 

For moisture, for they would encounter steam. 

Fossils of tropic plants and animals 

In many latitudes are found, which shows 

That terrestrial changes have oft occurred 

CHRISTIAN. 

We have never heard that the latitude 

Of any place on the earth, has been changed 

From the earliest ages. 



12 



PHILOSOPIIEK. 

Earliest ages ! 
How long is tliat % Histoiy backward reaches 
Three thousand years, almost; whereas, a tree^ 
I have heard it said, may four thousand live. 
Such teiTestrial changes should be looked for 
In the record of cycles, only; not 
In human history, which is limited 
To events of years. When the artic land 
Was within the tropics, as once it was. 
Its departure was very slow, of course, 
As on its bosom the accumulations 
Of a vast geologic age, it bore. 
Which way does the terrestrial movement tend I 
The question may well be asked; for no change 
Since the dawn of modern science, will point 
Its direction. On the Atlantic's shores, 
Both east and west; in Eastern America 
And Western Europe, the earth' s rock}^ ribs 
Show the grinding power of icy mountains. 
And then, upon the globe's other side, 
Throughout Siberia's artic realms, 'tis said 
The frozen elephants with force proclaim 
A warmer climate at some prior age. 
Such facts may show that our Atlantic land 



From Asia came. The Atlantic basin 

AVas a centi-al point of the polar land 

That passed beneath the articsnow and ice, 

With water level changing all the time. 

The carboniferous treasures which are found 

In the northern world, must Asiatic be. 

As also the fossil trees. But the trees, 

Upright, as now they stand, to have passed 

Beneath the polar ice, in the ocean 

Must have been submerged: or they may have grown 

When the gulf stream bore further west: but plants 

Of tropic gi'owth, must from the tropics come. 

CHRISTIAT^. 

If this be so, there is no primitive 
Formation ! 

PiriLOSOPIIER. 

The}^ view" not the rocks aright 
Who to the old Silurian sj^stem point 
As holding the fossilized first parents 
Of earth's countless species; for that system 
A¥as in the deep bosom of the ocean . 
Formed, and was not a fauna rich in life. 
But, while that formation was in progress, 
A tertiary, and alluvium, also, 



14 

Must have been extant, freighted with the life 

Of the present day, which are now, no doubt, 

In the ocean's deep bosom buried. 

No formation o'er all the earth extends; 

And as each grows up in the ocean's depth, 

Another must disappear. The faunas 

Of all formations must depend, of course, 

On their position in their watery bed. 

And the Cambrian, 'neatli fifty tliousand feet 

Of brooding ocean, would not be the home 

Of the prolific broods of shallow seas. 

CHRISTIAN. 

I must beg- 
To call you back to your definition 
Of philosopy; to what it deals in. 

PHILOSOPHER. 

It deals in facts, and facts alone. 

CHRISTIAN. 

Then hold ! 
Should we not stick to facts — to what we know ? 

PHILOSOPHER. 

There are certain known invariable laws 
Of matter, a knowledge of which makes up 



15 

The sum of oiir pliilosopj. How moves 

Tlie earth to warm with snnsliine all her sides, 

Or how, by wasting fires beneath — by rains 

Or corroding frosts above, the strata, 

By disintegration are worn away, 

Is speculation foreign to our theme. 

The tracks of time may not be rightly nosed 

By the keenest scenting philosopher 

Tliat ever embarked in chase of nature. 

But this we know, by fair deduction 

From well known laws, that, as time began not. 

And as the world is as old as time, 

All tilings brought forth b}^ time's effluxion. 

That in the future we see must occur, 

Must be recurrences of like events 

Repeated ad inflnitum in the past. 

That every strata now upon the earth 

Must some day be into new strata formed, 

Suggests the changes of the past. But then, 

We must bear in mind the controlling fact 

That organic structures are coeval 

With the universe, and God himself. 

CHRISTIAlSr. 

Organic structures embrace all species 
Of plants and animals. If eternal, 
Why are some extinct? 



16 



PHILOSOPHER. 



Forms alone may cliange. 
What ends, began. If from primordial forms 
Species have come by evolution, then 
Primordials only must eternal be. 
We trust there' s none extinct. Every species, 
In its structure, and faunal adaptation, 
Discloses perfect wisdom; a wisdom 
JSTot evolved from, but coeternal witli. 
The organic being. Species do not die out. 
But change, if into other faunas forced; 
So that the links of life new forms may take. 
But the chain itself is never broken. 
If a creator, and he e'er began. 
Then to God himself, an eternity 
Was lost. He began not. Organic forms. 
With power of sense and thought, were either made 
Or are eternal. But suppose we say 
That Darwin' s branchif ers the power of thought 
And sense embrace. By this we little gain. 
Whence those branchif ers ? If self propagating, 
Organic, with sense and thought indued, 
The embryo of superor races; 
Although of form most simple in the scale 
Of animated being, their origin 



17 • 

Is a in^^steiy still. Whence came their germ ? 

Could it ever have had a starting point \ 

Was it, by natural selection, teased 

From Huxley's mud or jelly? Or, in short, 

Did it come from a creative hand % 

'Tis vain to dwarf its origin, and say 

'Twas developed out from some still lower germ; 

For faculties of thouglit were never formed, 

jN'or were ever organic forms brought forth, 

From sensless elements, lest this flora 

Or tliat fauna, sliould be a barren waste 

Without appropriate occupants. 

CIIRISTIAlvr 

And still. 
It is thought that life is but in its dawn 
Upon the earth. 

PHILOSOPHER. 

Yes: and 'tis because there is and can be 

No record of the past. Those rocky leaves 

Of earth's history, which make some note of time. 

Are scanned with wonder by one whom the thought 

Of eternity confounds. Life, we see, 

Is combustion, an all-destroying flame, 

That leaps from form to form, and leaves behind 

But an ashy mound. Eternal ages 



18 

Have seen tliis eartli replete with teeming life, 

And still the flush of youth is on her brow. 

He who was, and is, and ever shall be, 

Is ever young, and in the present lives. 

Youth is nature's aspect — eternal youth. 

There's nothing old; for with careful fingers 

Death, creeping on life's footsteps, erases 

Every trace of past existence. 'Tis true 

A few fossils, hid away in oc^an caves, 

Are by some chance convulsion tlirown to sight. 

To keep a trace of life in mortal view 

For a few odd millions of years, to shock 

The spectator, and fill his soul with awe. 

But in her living walks, by a system 

That never changes, nature permits no show 

Of decrepitude or age to mark her reign. 

Every mortal being has a time for life. 

And each nation, tongue and "people, a day 

And generation. Three score j^ears and ten 

Are counted the span of a human's life; 

Two thousand years a people's age. ISTo tongue 

ISTow numbered among the dead, ever served 

For life's sweet uses for a longer term; 

Nor will one ever for a longer serve. 

Had some wild poet, when Antoninus 



19 

Reigned o'er Rome's imperial realms;— wlien, indeed, 

The whole civilized world itself was Rome, 

Her laws, letters and language extending 

From Asia's borders to the British Isles; — 

To that imperial lord have said, "My Lord, 

In five hundred years the Latin will cease 

To be a spoken language;" his lordship 

Would have shown incredulity, no doubt. 

No doubt but peoples spring, as by a sort 

Of evolution, from human masses 

Derived from disintegrated nations : 

But human history goes not back so far. 

In ten thousand years from now, no knowledge 

Of any art, tongue, people or nation, 

At present existing upon this earth. 

Will survive. Aye : let us look to the time 

When from the Atlantic a continent 

Shall appear. History will repeat itself. 

Prophetic races lirst come forth, of course,; 

Then, by slow degrees, midst bloody conflicts, 

Civilization wins her transient reign. 

The number of dead and forgotten tongues 

In the dark past buried, is infinite. 

CHRISTIATs^. 

Granted tlien, by the power of evolution, 



20 

For various species from the lower forms 
To spring, tlie eternity of organic life 
Has a fairer look. The earth yet may meet, 
What in the distant past it must have seen, 
Great climatic changes, hostile to life; 
Still, it v^onld be rash to say that all life. 
By such changes, could ever be, on land. 
Or in the deep, destroyed. If eternal 
We find the earth, then dates life upon it, 
Witli God's existence. 

PHILOSOPHER. 

Climatic and other changes on earth 

Must oft occur, which would the forms of life 

Destroy or change. Tliese changes simply mark 

The limits of variation of plants, 

And animals. Therefore, if by such change, 

Some species disappear, and other forms 

Are introduced, through the conservative, 

And wondrously preserving force of life, 

Struggling for existance, in a new state 

Of being, we witness an act creative, . 

In eif ect, but reparative in fact. 

CHEISTIAlSr. 

Why not the earth its life ? Each element, 
(And there are not more than four score in all,) 



21 

Has a vital principle of its own : 

And eacli, in its normal state, is a gas. 

If eartli be resolved to gas, the gases, 

What e'er their relative gravities, must, 

In space, by well known law^s, in social gronp 

Become diffused. A reign of death, indeed ! 

Life, conveyed by electric spark, or ray 

Of light, may produce the material forms 

In which w^e find them. If w^e say this earth, 

Touched by the vital spark, from gaseous state 

Came forth, with discharge of imprisoned heat, 

We must expect, w^itli all organic forms, 

That it has a day of dissolution, 

PHILOSOPHER. 

Earth die like man ! The vital spark to leave, 
And all resolved to gas ! Is life distinct 
From earth, with molding power; or did the earth 
Develope life % 

The embryo, or the germ, 
A mere cell, seen by microscopic eye, 
By laws of the mysterous force of life, 
Assimilates the organic elements 
Supplied from Nature's exhaustless stores. 
The vital spark ! 'tis not galvanic, 



'J 



22 

Generated in the organic cells; 

But a force tliat, in those cells, forever 

Has held its reign; reigning through organs 

Cerebral, indned with the power of thought 

Which conscious is, through the voluntary, 

But not, when through the involuntary, 

System, acting. It never sleeps, and is 

A controlling powder, and the providence 

Of living things. This providence is shown 

At every stage of being. The wondrous force 

Called vis medicatrix; the instincts 

That never err : the natural passions 

Which, at every point of the being's life. 

Promotes ihii success of a destined end; 

And then the plan or scheme, as if designed 

By wisdom divine, by which the species 

Are from extinction saved; this perfect round 

Of well planned means to ends, invests this life, 

This ruling force of the organic being. 

With something more than mere material powers. 

But not alone within the tissue cell 

Works this magic force; but, likewise, without, 

Its powers are sometimes felt, and are the cause 

Of what have been thought interpositions 

From the unseen world. Its sphere is not known. 



23 

We simply understand, it is tlie force 

That controls existence from end to end. 

Seeing all its objects attained in full. 

Man is tlionglit the wisest of breathing things : 

But without control of this higher power, 

His existence would find an end at once. 

When the individual's career is o'er 

And every object of his life obtained, 

What then remains, and what its destined end ? 

Many look with dread on dissolution. 

As though life could ever become extinct; 

But such forebodings are but borrowed fears. 

Death is a phantom; not a real foe. 

All creeping, breathing things, are here fixed fast, 

And must here remain. Eternal wisdom 

With which we find this endless life imbued. 

Has lodged the highest joy in youthful veins. 

And hence permits, not death, but renewals 

To everything that lives. Each germ thrown oif 

By the parent plant, animal, or man. 

Is that parent's self — is his very being — 

With all his habitudes, moral, mental 

And physical, indued. Throughout his life 

Such germs must be, in numbers vast, evolved, 

And in them, as they grow up around him, 



24 

Does the parent, with life renewed, exist. 

These emanations from the parent stock 

Draws each a part of the parental life. 

And are, as is seen, but transition steps 

Of the paternal being, who tlins goes forth. 

In yonth and beanty, in life's new career. 

Tims renewed, the new form snrvives the old. 

Which yields to dissolntion : but this fate — 

All dreaded death — ^when Nature's path is trod, 

No terror has — has no pang. One by one. 

As age advances, the ruling passions 

And strong desires of early days, depart, 

Till the mind itself is almost a blank. 

Soon memory ceases to recall ideas 

Of events or forms; and the aged one, 

Fed like a babe, step by step, weaker grows, 

ITntill naught but the withered form of man 

E,emains. By slow degrees, the senses all 

Are seen to fail; the eyes no longer see, 

'Not longer hear the ears; nor any taste 

In the palate left. Before the lingering. 

Vital spark shall go out, all sense and thought 

Will long have ceased. The change is then complete; 

And the monumental stone simply marks 

One stage of man' s existence. 



25 



CHRISTIAN. 

With your pliilosopliy, I find no i'anlt. 

You grant me God; and, in organic life, 

You find a providence; and races new, 

Evolved from antecedant races, wliicli, 

In one sense, you say, is called creation. 

That God is eternal, I will concede. 

If earth began, 'twas not the beginning 

Of God, nor of his world; but must have been 

One stage, only, in an infinite round 

Of transformations, which never began, 

And, hence, will never end. God's magnitude 

Will not be compressed to the dimensions 

Of man' s philosophy. We must enlarge 

To take him in, or our structures fall 

At his approach. Man is a finite being, 

And must build his philosophic systems 

With movable timbers, because often 

He will have to alter and enlarge them. 

I think well of your speculations, for. 

It is the true sphere of philosophy 

To find out God, and not ignore him. 



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